The FINAL
FANTASY XIV interview on GamersInfo.net chats briefly with Hiromichi
Tanaka and Nobuaki Komoto about the just-announced next installment in the RPG
series. They ask about similarities to FINAL FANTASY XI, the previous FF
MMOG, and Tanaka explains the difference: "FFXIV is completely different from
FFXI and as such, there won’t be any porting over of characters from FFXI to
FFXIV, even though the character design is similar. We will not be using the
PlayOnline system but a new design." Komoto goes on to elaborate: "The game
systems will be different. FFXIV will have new in-game systems for character
development as well as an expanded job system. It is quite different from FFXI.
Many features of FFXI will be improved upon. We want to bring content for solo
players and casual players as well as large party play from the beginning of the
game."

35 to 45 in a day? Yeah maybe now, not four years ago. You could easily spend an hour regaining lost EXP from death back when I used to play the game. Keep in mind they altered the exp numbers significantly a year or two ago to calm down the bitching about the grind. So what he's saying could easily be correct.

Soloing still sucks by the way. Just because you can do it with a BST or PMT doesn't mean it's viable for most jobs. Even then it usually requires a gimmick build with very specific items and a specific subjob to grind up.

You can't really defend a game where an entire party fights three crabs in epic battles to level up.

There are quite a few people that have actually solo'd several jobs all the way to 75.

The crafting system is all estimates. Certain moon phases and days supposedly give certain benefits. You can always craft whatever you want, but if you want the extra .2% chance to get a high quality item you wait until everything is aligned. I don't see anything wrong with that. (personally, I think crafting is boring in FFXI, though)

Also, if you have an good party, you can easily go from 35 to 45 in a day. You obviously didn't play the game enough to experience that.

The thing I enjoyed the most was the level grind. I went to wow about 8 months ago, and I'm very bored with end game there.. even with Ulduar. The character/class consolidation is something I miss a lot from FFXI.

Anyhow, FFXI is a much different game than it was a few years ago. There's a lot more solo content in it now.

It had no trouble attracting players back then but it had a horrible retention rate with people. Who the hell wants to beat on crabs for 50-60 levels until they can do the fun stuff? In a forced party no less and you cannot solo unless you're a beastmaster. If you grinded hardcore with a great group in a spot where no one else camped the mobs you were lucky to get a level a night post lvl35. The grind totally murdered an otherwise very interesting game.

The crafting system sucked too though. You can only craft this thing on X day of the solar phase to get Y result.